Nigeria Content Online

In primary school,
the playground scene of children contesting ownership of a
lost-and-found item was a familiar one. ‘It’s mine.’ ‘No, it’s mine.’
‘I found it first. Hand it over.’ So it went. Normally, it was easy to
ascertain ownership. A secret marking here, an etched name there, and
that was that. If you really think about it, we lost the economy in
2008. Now it is found, a few grownups with fat cheque books and thin
identities have decided that rather than savour the cooling relief of
an easing economy, they should quarrel over its antecedents.

When the economy
began its downward tilt in 2008, no one owned up to the role they
played in the excesses that spiraled out of control. The bankers,
regulators, stock brokers, portfolio managers, central bankers, and
government officials joined in one accord to say,

“Mea culpa? Not
me.” The crisis, they unanimously concurred, was caused by the
global-this-and-global-that. “It had no local causes and we had no hand
in it,” they chorused.

Then the recovery
started, and the stock market picked up. Suddenly, the worst is over
and the optics far too tempting. Two groups of claimants have now
stepped forward to contest its ownership.

On the one side,
critics of the government’s policy interventions claim that the rescue
efforts, especially those that imposed changes in corporate control,
were done in bad faith as the situation was never as dire as initially
presented. On the other side, supporters of the government’s direct
involvement in corporate management argue that the bounceback is
evidence of the investor confidence that the government has
successfully restored.

I find it amusing
that had the economy never flickered back to life, would both groups
have justifiably excused themselves? While the government’s partisans
would hold it up as proof that the situation was so far gone nothing
could save it, its antagonists would counter-argue that the very act of
intervention panicked investors and transformed amber beeps to scarlet
alarms.

In the past eight
months, these two groups, the Renaissance Professionals and the Vision
For Greater Nigeria (V4GN) have spent several millions running full
page advertorials on the economic results of the government
intervention. While the former have attacked the government’s
intervention in the banking sector as ill-thought out and
counterproductive, the latter has celebrated the Central Bank of
Nigeria’s actions as timely and lifesaving.

Responding to a
statement by the CBN governor that the frothy valuations enjoyed by
many stocks will not return in the near term, the Renaissance
Professionals branded him an ignoramus.

According to the
group, “the performance of stocks since the beginning of the year only
shows that Mallam Sanusi is a doomsday Prophet, prophesying over what
he has limited knowledge of. It is on record that the banking index has
returned 14.3 percent in just three months. . . Even the banks that the
CBN took over . . . have gained an average of 16 percent to 43 percent
in the last three months. . . This trend only shows that Mallam Sanusi
was absolutely wrong when he said that these stocks have no chance of
recovery. It only shows that he knows nothing about how the capital
market works.” (‘Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor’s Statements:
Showcase of Pedestrian Knowledge’).

Repelling this, the
Vision for Greater Nigeria, asserted that “the stability we are
enjoying now in the financial sector did not just happen. It is the
result of well-thought out monetary policies put in place by the CBN to
achieve its clearly spelt out objectives . . . the emerging conducive
atmosphere engendered by the financial stability achieved over recent
times, especially in the first quarter of 2010, has fuelled steady
growth in both the banking sector and capital market.” (‘Central Bank
of Nigeria Banking Reforms: Stabilising the Financial Sector’).

I may be getting ahead of myself, but maybe V4GN should be renamed the Lamido Sanusi Fan Club.

There is an old
proverb that success has many family members, but failure is an orphan.
At this rate, a DNA test may be in order. To do that, we need blood
samples, not from the disputed child this time, but from the contending
fathers. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Renaissance Professionals and
Vision for Greater Nigeria appear on TV for a public debate to set the
record straight? These two paragons of opacity, whose only contacts are
mobile phone numbers and email addresses, should forget who the
recovery’s daddy is. What I want to know is who their own sugar daddies
are. I suspect they will be hiding their birth certificates for a long
time to come. Legitimate children do not conceal the circumstance of
their birth.

The writer is the managing director of a full service investor relations firm based in Lagos.